Every Child Practicing Empathy

In a world of rapid change, society is confronted by an increasing number of complex challenges and opportunities. Ensuring solutions will outpace problems requires effective collaboration and the ability to organize into fluid teams-of-teams, where every player must be a contributor and a leader.

Effective collaboration in this environment is only possible with empathy: the ability to understand and respond to the feelings of others. In a changemaker world, empathy is as fundamental as reading and math. This creates a new social imperative to ensure that every child fully develops their own innate capacity for empathy.

Ashoka is bringing together a global network of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs and other partners to work towards a society where learning empathy is a essential, parents insist that their children develop empathy, and institutions cultivate empathy in learning and in practice.

We encourage you to explore the diverse ways that Ashoka’s Start Empathy initiative supports changemaking in young people and adults. Engage with our dedicated teams today to help advance an “Everyone a Changemaker” world:

Ashoka Changemaker Schools enable all students to become changemakers: young people with the skills and confidence to change the world for the good of all. At Ashoka Changemaker Schools, students are learning the essential skills of empathy, creativity, thoughtfulness, leadership, and teamwork so that they can thrive in the modern world and find solutions to our most complex problems. We have adapted our methodology for selecting the world’s leading social entrepreneurs to identifying and selecting a global network of Changemaker Schools. Follow us on Twitter: @AshokaCMschools.

Ashoka’s Start Empathy Initiative is mobilizing Ashoka’s network of social entrepreneurs, educators, and concerned citizens who are working with young people to make empathy a priority skill for all children. Ashoka identifies and elects Ashoka Fellows whose ideas and initiatives are teaching us how to cultivate empathy across society. It collaborates with influential elementary schools and school networks — public, public charter, and private — to develop and showcase models of school environments that integrate empathy as a core learning objective and strategy. Join the conversation on #StartEmpathy.